Chaos Chronicles - Official Blog

August 28th, 2012, 22:45

Remember Chaos Chronicles? The turn-based, fantasy CRPG from Coreplay (Jagged Alliance: Back in Action)? They sent word over of their official blog, which we'd overlooked before. The latest entry talks about the attraction of world maps:

There is this another pen&paper roleplaying system beside D&D most of us at Coreplay spent time with in the 90s: Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye) which most gamers outside of Germany may actually know mostly for the computer games based on it. The first trilogy of DSA computer games (that were heavily influenced by the Gold Box games from SSI) were released as Realms of Arkania in English. The first of them called Blade of Destiny (Die Schicksalsklinge) was first released in 1992 (and then in the US in 1993) for Amiga and PC. One thing that might be worth noting for you CRPG addicts is that the game was designed by Guido Henkel who also produced probably one of the best CRPGs of all time: Planescape: Torment.
What was cool about the game was that it was also very open in its design. You had to find a legendary sword and to find that sword you had to put together a map that would reveal its location on the world map. The map pieces were randomized so you might find one trading with a merchant on the road or as a reward for solving a quest that might otherwise only reward you with some gold.
This design didn’t only give the game a lot of replay value it also made travelling the world a big part of the game. Quests would often lead you form one city to another and you would have to travel for several days and set up camp for the night on your journey.
Most of the other games we mentioned before have similar elements. We did highlight Ultima for the exploration of Britannia alone, remember? And our fondest memories of Phantasie include the random encounters that would make each journey an adventure. And remember that first time in Pool of Radiance you started moving that little horse around? Suddenly everything seemed possible!

Yes, the combat is turn-based but in contrast to ToEE it takes place on a hexagon grid. The exploration (moving through dungeons until the next combat takes place) and travelling over the worldmap is real-time without any kind of grid.

2) how does the combat system plays out? are you using your own system or something based on OGL?

Our combat system will be significantly influenced by D&D, D20 and Goldbox SSI games like Pool of Radiance (Stinking Cloud ftw!)

3) how many characters can your party have?

5 or 6 (+ 1 NPC slot)

4) are these characters created or will you meet characters that can join your party? will these be dead on the inside, or will they have their own personality and agenda (eg: may even betray you)?

You can create your own character(s) from the scratch with dices and you can recruit existing characters in the guildhall. Furthermore you will meet character who could probably join your party. Characters of the last category will have their own agenda and … secrets.

5) from the screenshots I can see the game is isometric with fixed point of view, correct? will you be able to zoom in and out?

It's fully 3D and you can rotate and zoom the camera (zooming will be limited though)

6) will there be any major plot line with several side quests, or is the game an endless dungeon crawler?

Yes, there is an epic main story and we don't have any kind of random content, every item and dungeon is designed by hand.

Sounds very promising. I don't like the idea of seeing a hexagon grid during battles though. I hope they include an option to hide it. Everything else sounds great.